Miss Betty

[Chad Harrison]

Along those lines, I just finished Fire in the Sky and he does not treat the Betty/Nell well in that book. He went on and on about how it had many problems and deficiencies and easy they were shot down by any means, but especially naval AA while they were attacking.

Which was funny to read after coming from vanilla WitP where you would think that the Betty/Nell pretty much won the war for Japan!

[joliverlay]

Shark7

[:@]I don't think anything made before, since or that ever will be made will "shame" the B-17. She will have a place of honor amongst aircraft as long as we fly.

As to the Japanese design you show, it should be compared to its contempary the B-29 and other bombers in developent at the end of the war. I'm not sure its defensive armament is adequate for the time period.

[Anthropoid]

Be interesting to see how Betty looks in AE. Really startin' to look forward to my first PBEM [:)]

[Fallschirmjager]

From what I understand the Betty excelled in the level bombing role. It was fast for a inter war period bomber and could mantain alltitude well. It was also *gasp* damage resistant apart from the non self sealing fuel tanks. There are numerous times the bomber returned to base on just one engine. Assuming it did not catch fire (which was a big if) it could take moderate damage and still make it.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

Shark7

[:@]I don't think anything made before, since or that ever will be made will "shame" the B-17. She will have a place of honor amongst aircraft as long as we fly.

As to the Japanese design you show, it should be compared to its contempary the B-29 and other bombers in developent at the end of the war. I'm not sure its defensive armament is adequate for the time period.

I don't know, twice the bombload at 5 times the range...as in from the Home Islands to the West Coast and back. It wasn't until the B-36 Peacemaker that the US actually achieved that type of range.

B-17 was the most rugged of the US bombers and in my opinion the best of them, but the Army Air Force didn't think so and it was surpassed due to range and bombload by the B-24 and B-29.

Here's a better stat page on the G10N: http://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/G10N1.htm

Would love to try out a wing of the G10Ns though, could prove fun. [:D]

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

"So I had a look at the wiki for Betty bomber . . . doesn't really _sound_ like she was all that fearsome?"

She can carry a torpedo an awfully long way. Couple that with a lot of long range fighters and they make for tough days for enemy shipping. No allied SCTFs can start a drive-by bombardment run form outside the Betty's torpedo range, so the nuclear base bombardment by SCTF option is less available to the allied player.

True...at least early in the game. If the allied player has any air cover available at all, Miss Betty gets burned! Even without air cover, once the allied surface ships begin their AA upgrades, Miss Betty and her girlfriends get burned!

Chez

Yeah, but here we are in mid-44 and I'm still trying to catch up to you in shipping kills - mainly due to all the ones I lost in '41-42 to Misses Betty and Nell!

The raid against Lexington IRL proved that unescorted Betties were extremely vulnerable.

Unfortunately for me, you were never so arrogant as to send an unescorted strike against any of my carriers... now your pilots are staying at home crying about something called a Hellcat!

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

"So I had a look at the wiki for Betty bomber . . . doesn't really _sound_ like she was all that fearsome?"

She can carry a torpedo an awfully long way. Couple that with a lot of long range fighters and they make for tough days for enemy shipping. No allied SCTFs can start a drive-by bombardment run form outside the Betty's torpedo range, so the nuclear base bombardment by SCTF option is less available to the allied player.

True...at least early in the game. If the allied player has any air cover available at all, Miss Betty gets burned! Even without air cover, once the allied surface ships begin their AA upgrades, Miss Betty and her girlfriends get burned!

Chez

Yeah, but here we are in mid-44 and I'm still trying to catch up to you in shipping kills - mainly due to all the ones I lost in '41-42 to Misses Betty and Nell!

The raid against Lexington IRL proved that unescorted Betties were extremely vulnerable.

Unfortunately for me, you were never so arrogant as to send an unescorted strike against any of my carriers... now your pilots are staying at home crying about something called a Hellcat!

Oh... and what date in late '43 was it that your ladies sank the Nevada off Derby? I'll admit that it was a CAP screwup by me, but the AA wasn't enough to protect her!

[greg_slith]

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

Shark7

[:@]I don't think anything made before, since or that ever will be made will "shame" the B-17. She will have a place of honor amongst aircraft as long as we fly.

As to the Japanese design you show, it should be compared to its contempary the B-29 and other bombers in developent at the end of the war. I'm not sure its defensive armament is adequate for the time period.

I think the B-52 is gotta come close... still in action after 50 years (and will be for who knows how long).

[Anthropoid]

Hey, question for you guys. This is not the best thread for it, but since it is active, maybe I'll get a quick answer:
 
My buddy RekM41 has offered to start a vanilla WiTP PBEM, but once AE comes out, I intend to upgrade pretty much immediately. Will it still be possible to continue a vanilla WiTP PBEM after I add AE?

[DivePac88]

No

[ckammp]

deleted

[Anthropoid]

Thanks guys!

[joliverlay]

B52 is a great plane, no doubt. In my opinion Boeing makes some of the best planes in the world. They have always made their planes rugged, rudundant, and hard to bring down. But I don't belive the B52 or anything else "shames" the fortress. The greatness of a plane has to be tested in combat aginst a compotent foe. The B17 was, the B52 perhaps less so. Which plane was most loved by the men who flew and which plane dropped the most bombs. Also keep in mind that it was designed in the 1930s and in service before the war. Its contemporaries were the He-111, etc.

One of the things my father liked about the B-17 was that it was one of the few 4E heavy bombers that could and would bring you home with 3 engines shot out or a significant part of the wing shattered. Sometimes both. Men returned from missions in B-17s in craft that did not even look like they could fly.

It is true that much about the B17 was myth or legand, but the facts alone still are quite impressive. Here are some stats quoted from Wikopedia:

"Despite an inferior range and bombload compared to the more numerous B-24 Liberator,[9] a survey of Eighth Air Force crews showed a much higher rate of satisfaction in the B-17.[10] With a service ceiling greater than any of its Allied contemporaries, the B-17 established itself as a superb weapons system, dropping more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. Of the 1.5 million tonnes of bombs dropped on Germany by U.S. aircraft, 640,000 were dropped from B-17s.[11]"

[rogueusmc]

I like the Betty when it turns on the smoke thingies and does the cool aerobatics and dives...




...the Lightning pilot says, "like I'm gonna try a maneuver like that.."[:D]

[m10bob]

[quote]ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

I like the Betty when it turns on the smoke thingies and does the cool aerobatics and dives...




...the Lightning pilot says, "like I'm gonna try a maneuver like that.."[:D]
[/quote
.....and mid dive, sometimes they disappear in that smoke!

[Shark7]

The B-52 was extremely well tested against a very competent NVA and their Russian advisors. There is a big difference between WWII MG and Cannon fire and getting hit with a 'Flying Telephone Pole' aka the SA-2 Guidline. When engaged with cannon and MG armed MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters the B-52 did well enough, but SAMs and AIMs are made to be 1 hit 1 kill type weapons, it is actually quite a feat to be able to land after being hit by one.

Compairing a B-17 to a B-52 is really an apples and oranges comparison due to the vast differences in technology that the two had to overcome. Throw a B-17 over North Vietnam in '72 and it won't last or come back. Throw a B-52 over the skies of Japan in late '45 and you'll likely never lose one. These are totally different scenarios.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

B52 is a great plane, no doubt. In my opinion Boeing makes some of the best planes in the world. They have always made their planes rugged, rudundant, and hard to bring down. But I don't belive the B52 or anything else "shames" the fortress. The greatness of a plane has to be tested in combat aginst a compotent foe. The B17 was, the B52 perhaps less so. Which plane was most loved by the men who flew and which plane dropped the most bombs. Also keep in mind that it was designed in the 1930s and in service before the war. Its contemporaries were the He-111, etc.

I believe B-52s in Nam dropped more bombs than the 8th AF did in WW II. The B-52 has a substantially larger bomb load than any WW II bomber.

As Shark said you need to compare apples to apples. The measure of an airplane has to be against its contemporaries and look at its mission. The B-17 needed to survive in an extreme high threat environment and drop a payload with precision. Compared to what was available in even the 1950s, it would be a dismal failure. Compared to other 1st generation strategic bombers (of which there were very few), it is way beyond any of the others. Compared to 2nd generation strategic bombers like the B-24, it has some limitations (range, speed, and payload), but it has a higher survivability in combat. It still had some benefit, so it stayed in production.

The B-29 initially had severe engine problems which hampered it's abilities, but it was still the only bomber available capable of attacking Japan from the Marianas. After the bugs were worked out of the engines, the B-29 proved to be better than the B-17 ever was in every measure. It was also a 3rd generation strategic bomber.

I have read the B-36 was actually started as a contemporary of the B-29. When it looked like Germany was going to over run England, the US got serious about a strategic bomber capable for attacking occupied Europe from the US. With the Battle of Britain over and England safe from invasion, the B-36 was put on the back burner, but work continued on the B-29.

The B-36 was eclipsed by the B-47 and later the B-52, which were the next generation of strategic bombers. The fact that the B-52 is still flying is a testament to its versatility. I've sometimes thought that there may not be a single B-52 crew member that is older than the airplane he flies. That has to be unique in the history of military aviation.

Bill

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

I like the Betty when it turns on the smoke thingies and does the cool aerobatics and dives...

...the Lightning pilot says, "like I'm gonna try a maneuver like that.."[:D]

no fair! Those Betties were in a landing pattern! [;)]

[Anthropoid]

I've sometimes thought that there may not be a single B-52 crew member that is older than the airplane he flies. That has to be unique in the history of military aviation.

 
It seems pretty amazing from a sociological and historical perspective too. Alot of this stuff boggles the brains when you put it into the broader perspectives of the last 10,000 or even the last couple hundred years.
 
I was watching a documentary or something, so long now I cannot even recall when or what it was. They were talking about contemporary CV fighter-bombers, not sure which model, F-15? maybe F-18. I think it must've been before 2001, before all action started . . . Anyway, they commented how some of the bombs and missiles being loaded onto these planes heading out for training and patrols were older than the pilots flying the planes!
 
An explosive device that has been repeatedly taken out of its storage space, manhandled around a ships working spaces, and attached on to planes going out to train and patrol, repeatedly, day after day, for decades, and the weapon still passes the safety tests and shows no evidence that it is no longer useful or potent. That is both amazing, awe-inspiring, and chilling all at once.

[rtrapasso]

An explosive device that has been repeatedly taken out of its storage space, manhandled around a ships working spaces, and attached on to planes going out to train and patrol, repeatedly, day after day, for decades, and the weapon still passes the safety tests and shows no evidence that it is no longer useful or potent. That is both amazing, awe-inspiring, and chilling all at once.

Actually, recently this was uncovered as a probable major cause of the USS Forrestal disaster... the bombs that cooked off had just been loaded the day before, and some of them were marked "1935" according to witnesses... the ordnance chief was so upset that he thought that they would be to unstable to launch on a catapault shot, but they later determined they were OK in that respect.

However, they were NOT stable in heat/fire: all the bombs that cooked off once the fire started* with high-order detonations were the older bombs... some newer bombs also "cooked off", but they had low-order "squib"-type detonations. Actually, the old bombs INCREASED in potentcy, and the 1000 pound thin-skinned bombs were estimated to have a yield of around about 1500 pounds of more modern ordnance.

The USN denied the bombs were from 1935, and claimed they were from 1953, however, the person who had originally brought the complaint (and originally wanted the bombs dumped overboard as soon as they were loaded) stated that he noted when he brought the complaint that the bombs "were older than he was", and he was around 30 at the time, iirc.

*( the fire started from a Zuni rocket being fired due to improper grounding procedures)